Republican presidential candidate John McCain drew a sharp rebuke Monday from conservatives after he signaled an openness to a higher payroll tax for Social Security, contrary to previous vows not to raise taxes of any kind.

Speaking with reporters on his campaign bus on July 9, he cited a need to shore up Social Security, saying: “I cannot tell you what I would do, except to put everything on the table.”

He went a step farther Sunday with his reponse on a nationally televised talk show to a question about payroll tax increases.

“There is nothing that’s off the table. I have my positions, and I’ll articulate them. But nothing’s off the table,” McCain said. “I don’t want tax increases. But that doesn’t mean that anything is off the table.”

That comment drew a strong response Monday from the Club for Growth, a Washington anti-tax group. McCain’s comments, the group said in a letter to the Arizona senator, are “shocking because you have been adamant in your opposition to raising taxes under any circumstances.”

ABC News

McCain has been holding up pretty well in the polls and them he goes and does something stupid like this.  Of all the things to have a change of heart on, why in the hell would he back off a pledge not to raise taxes?  Taxes don’t need to be raised.  Spending needs to be cut and Social Security doesn’t need to be shored up.  It needs to be phased out of existence.

Wow.  What kind of heathens are in the Oregon State Legislature?

Some terminally ill patients in Oregon who turned to their state for health care were denied treatment and offered doctor-assisted suicide instead, a proposal some experts have called a “chilling” corruption of medical ethics.

Since the spread of his prostate cancer, 53-year-old Randy Stroup of Dexter, Ore., has been in a fight for his life. Uninsured and unable to pay for expensive chemotherapy, he applied to Oregon’s state-run health plan for help.

Lane Individual Practice Association (LIPA), which administers the Oregon Health Plan in Lane County, responded to Stroup’s request with a letter saying the state would not cover Stroup’s pricey treatment, but would pay for the cost of physician-assisted suicide.

“It dropped my chin to the floor,” Stroup told FOX News. “[How could they] not pay for medication that would help my life, and yet offer to pay to end my life?”

The letter, which has been sent to other terminal patients throughout Oregon, follows guidelines established by the state legislature.

Fox News

This is precisely what we can expect from a universal health care system if God forbid we ever end up with that here in the United States.  When it gets to be too expensive, they’ll just let you die.  It already happens in Britain.

Grandmother dies after NHS cancer treatment is withdrawn because she paid privately for life-extending drug